{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/our-hero",
 "title": "Our Hero",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Atlanta Offering: Poems",
 "book_slug": "atlanta-offering",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 7,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1895,
  "venue": "Atlanta Offering: Poems (1895)",
  "note": "This is the earliest dated printing located. The poem is also printed in the undated pamphlet Light Beyond the Darkness (Chicago: Donohue & Henneberry), which the evidence places between 1893 and 1901; whether that printing came first is not established. No earlier periodical printing has been established either.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_light-beyond-the-darkness"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-on-miscellaneous-subjects-1857",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonmiscellan00harp",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-1871",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007491600",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100774124",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-full-text-1895",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100488369",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-idylls-of-the-bible-1901",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100319488",
   "https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican00payn",
   "https://archive.org/details/WeeklyAngloAfricanI",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1858-05-14_28_20",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000500702",
   "https://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr00stil",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872",
   "https://archive.org/details/25th-annual-report-of-the-board-of-managers-of-the-home-etc",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_light-beyond-the-darkness",
   "https://archive.org/details/ame-church-review-1900-04"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Onward to her destination,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er the stream the Hannah sped,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When a cry of consternation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smote and chilled our hearts with dread.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Wildly leaping, madly sweeping,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All relentless in their sway,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a band of cruel demons",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flames were closing ’round our way.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! the horror of those moments;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flames above and waves below⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! the agony of ages",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crowded in one hour of woe.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fainter grew our hearts with anguish",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that hour with peril rife,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When we saw the pilot flying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Terror-stricken, for his life.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then a man uprose before us⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We had once despised his race⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But we saw a lofty purpose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lighting up his darkened face.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "While the flames were madly roaring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a courage grand and high,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Forth he rushed unto our rescue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strong to suffer, brave to die.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Helplessly the boat was drifting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death was staring in each face,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When he grasped the fallen rudder,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Took the pilot’s vacant place.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Could he save us? Would he save us?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All his hope of life give o’er?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Could he hold that fated vessel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Till she reached the nearer shore?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All our hopes and fears were centered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Round his strong, unfaltering hand;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If he failed us we must perish,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perish just in sight of land.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Breathlessly we watched and waited",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the flames were raging fast;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When our anguish changed to rapture⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We were saved, yes, saved at last.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Never strains of sweetest music",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brought to us more welcome sound",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the grating of that steamer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When her keel had touched the ground.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But our faithful martyr hero",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through a fiery pathway trod,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he laid his valiant spirit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the bosom of his God.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fame has never crowned a hero",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the crimson fields of strife,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Grander, nobler, than that pilot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yielding up for us his life.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}